


The Lost Decade

by irolltwenties (Shenanigans)



Series: Til the Night [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Boys Being Idiots, Character Death, Gen, Hope, M/M, Multi, Violence, canon levels of heartbreak, cosmic intimacy, filling in the blanks, pining on a decade level, soulmate denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:35:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 15,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/irolltwenties
Summary: "Your task is not to seek for love, but to seek and destroy all the barriers you have built within yourself against it." - RumiAlex and Michael had a decade to fill in. I took some liberties.
Relationships: Alex Manes/Damianos Carras, Alex Manes/Oliver Thomas, Alex Manes/Original Male Character(s), Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Til the Night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1416757
Comments: 54
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Breaking the chapters into Dated Moments, so I can continue to add to this as I go.

2008 - Roswell September

Late August in New Mexico sat like a wet wool blanket over the mesa, weighted and uncomfortable heat leeching the color from the world. It was narrowing down to the points of contact, the bright notes of near pain where his bare skin touched the metal of the truck bed. The blanket was thick, rumpled, and necessary under them. The sun had set an hour ago, taking the lancing white rage of the desert with it, leaving the heat like an afterthought, like a kiss after a kiss. It lingered and pressed against him where he lay, panting and slick with sweat. 

Alex Manes had grown up in Roswell. He knew the heat. He knew the way it would burnish him in the summers, crisping him golden with the paler tan lines around his hips. It was an old friend.

They weren’t going to talk. They weren’t going to talk about this. There wasn’t time.

Michael was on his side and Alex could pretend like he didn’t feel the weight of his gaze like a touch. He could pretend he didn’t feel the way Guerin’s gaze traced over the bridge of his nose and lingered on his mouth. He could pretend. He’d gotten good at that.

But Michael reached, tracing a wondering finger over his brow and Alex stilled in a very simple way.

Above him, the stars were starting to prickle into the dark, shaking off the covers and yawning into the evening. They rolled their shoulders and set to work, brawlers who brought beauty and the simple hope of a wish. Alex knew that wishes only came true if someone fell first. He was terrified it was going to be him. He was terrified that Michael already had.  
“Guer-”

“Nah,” Michael breathed, a simple pop of noise that negated all his excuses, fingers of his right hand going hard at Alex’s jaw. The stars went dark when Alex closed his eyes and let himself be turned, let himself be led to look at the one thing that was prettier than the sprawl of the cosmos in the dark.

Michael Guerin was on his side, wounded hand tucked out of sight and watching him. His curls were tight near his scalp, damp with drying sweat before going wild and tangled. Alex had done that. He’d been helpless to the way his fingers wanted to reach and curl, to feel one more part of Michael Guerin wrap around him. The first time was frantic, near keening with the explosive want of him. They crashed into each other. They left bruises. They pulled and bit and clutched and cried.

Michael traced his thumb over his bottom lip and Alex shivered. It was murderously hot, baking them like clay to porcelain- stronger and somehow delicate. Michael moved in moments. The hand to the back of Alex’s neck tugging him closer. The feel of his knee sliding between Alex’s thighs. The way Alex could feel the heat of Michael’s body pressing close like pulling a blanket over him. Hips, the mess of them slicking and sticky on their stomachs, the quick tacky feel of it when they breathed. The tickles of Michael’s chest hair. The weight of his gaze. The heat of his breath breaking over his mouth. 

Michael kissed him, once,soft like a promise, twice, gentle like a curse, and Alex did the only thing he knew how to do in the dark. He fell.


	2. Chapter 2

2008 - Roswell October

Maria almost didn’t recognize Michael Guerin when he wandered into the Pony four months after Rosa’s funeral. He was unshaven, with red-rimmed reckless eyes and hair that was tangled on one side and picked wild by the wind on the other. He looked like a reflection of himself. He was wearing the third t-shirt again, stains at the underarms and hole in the collar gone gaping and wide. His jeans were dirty, grease-stained with a new rip at the left knee. He rubbed his jaw against his shoulder and locked eyes on the only empty barstool, moving determinedly toward the seat in front of the second well. The music was loud, thumping half-hearted country mixed with old AC/DC and a few smattered newer pop songs. They’d upgraded to one of those wall-mounted juke boxes right before Rosa died.

They’d done a lot of things right before Rosa died and Maria was starting to realize that her life was going to be divided neatly into Before Rosa and After Rosa. The timeline still new enough that she found herself waiting for a text at night or hoping she’d climb the metal stairs of the fire escape at the Crashdown and find Rosa practicing one of her songs on the battered guitar. She kept hoping that Rosa wasn’t dead on the side of the road. She kept hoping she wasn’t just a simple white cross and a body in the dirt.

Maria wished for a lot of things, but she was still waiting for one of them to come true.  
She’d been tending bar on accident tonight, her mother had woken a little confused and not feeling well. Maria had smiled, tucking her plans into her back pocket and grabbing the tills to open. She’d been pouring the perfect pint since she was twelve after all. She could handle the business for one night.

“You can’t be here, Guerin,” Maria hissed, wiping down the bar until she reached him and looking around.

“Place looks open to me, DeLuca,” Michael replied, setting a brand new black cowboy hat on the bar. It looked odd on his head, too large and waiting to fit right. He handed her a smile she’d never seen and wasn’t sure she liked as he gently set both hands on the polished wood bartop.

“You got ID?” she replied, brows flicking up.

He laughed, off key and wobbling and hitched to the left to fish his wallet out of his right back pocket and handed her the fake Rosa had made him. “That work?”

Maria frowned, chest going tight as she felt the edges and stared at his face in the plastic. “You know I know this is-”

“You gonna serve me, DeLuca, or am I gonna have to find someplace else to forget for awhile?” He almost whispered the question and Maria glanced up, holding his eyes.

She’d tried to read him just once before, curious in sixth grade and had startled when Isobel, Max, and Michael’s heads had all swiveled to stare at her across the lunchroom. She’d startled so hard, heart pounding as she looked away. She hadn’t looked again. Honestly, she hadn’t needed to.

Michael Guerin was a mess. Michael Guerin was heartbroken and lost. Michael Guerin was broken. She watched him as he watched her. “Come on, DeLuca. Start me a tab?”

She opened her mouth, tapping the edge of his fake against the bar.

“Please.”

Maria DeLuca had a soft spot for the broken ones. She asked herself one simple question: what would Rosa do?

In her head, she heard the wild slippery laugh and could almost smell the hint of peppery weed and amber vanilla body spray. She looked at Guerin and felt a sudden connection. They both just wanted something that could never happen. They were both the ones left behind.

“Just one.” She handed him the fake and tilted her head. “Beer or Bourbon?”

Michael tucked the ID back into his wallet and tucked a fake smile onto his face, grinning brightly at her. “Dealer’s choice, Darlin’.”

“Don’t call me Darlin’.”

“Okay, DeLuca.”


	3. Chapter 3

JUNE 2009 - Somewhere outside Roswell 

Alex hadn’t been able to stop himself from coming back to Roswell on leave. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from waiting outside the UFO Emporium to catch sight of that battered blue Chevy with the creaking ball joints. He waited and when Michael had finally stopped, eyes wide and engine idling in an uneven chug as he swallowed, staring through the windshield at where Alex simply tilted his head in quiet question. Michael leaned out the window, good hand touching the edge of his side mirror before he coughed a small laugh. “Wanna go for a ride?” The question quirked his eyebrow, jaw working as he tipped his head at the passenger seat. It was an invitation.

They’d fucked on blankets in the truck bed, desperate and fast, rutting hot and hard against hips and hands. He’d heard the soft high whine Michael managed when he’d pushed deep. He folded it up with the letter and kept it next to his heart. They’d startled there, finally touching, deep and perfect in the dark, the heat slipping away as the minutes ticked on, the stars whirling overhead and the sound of howls yipping in the distance. The night wasn’t quiet in the desert. It wasn’t quiet here in New Mexico and it wasn’t quiet in Iraq. Michael was trembling, whole body shivering under the pound of his heartbeat. He was swallowing around the deep long pants of breath as he shifted, making room for Alex. Michael had his good hand on the tool box tucked at the back window of his truck and his left hand pressed Alex’s fingers into his stomach. “Wait, wait wait wait.” He’d blown out a breath and Alex had tucked his face against the curve of his shoulder and held fast, not moving around the wild beat of his heart. “Just, let me,” Michael moaned, shifting before ducking. His jeans were around his thighs, boots still on and shirt just rucked up enough that Alex could get his fingers around the length of him.

Alex was touching Michael Guerin in the dark, miles from anyone and anything that could hurt them. Alex was pressed against the broad freckled expanse of his back and all Michael wanted in that moment was to wait, wait just a breath, to stretch it out in the dark so it lasted just a breath longer. Alex could give him that.


	4. Chapter 4

June 2009 - Roswell Motel

He inhaled slowly, chest rising as he laced his fingers together in his lap, cracking the knuckles with a quick twist of wrist. He exhaled and he felt the ghost of Michael’s fingers stroking down his spine like a question in the pearly morning light that wandered drunk under the blackout curtains. He remembered the way he’d been rubbing his face, pushing at the ache behind his eyes and not looking at where Michael was laying on his side behind him. He couldn’t look because he wouldn’t be able to leave. Instead, he’d slipped his dog tags back on and hooked his jeans up his hips with a little hop and snagged his shirt from the floor. “Guerin, I have to go.”

“Stay,” he’d hummed, almost a song as his fingers slid across the mess of sheets. They’d been caught up in each other, in the taste, the feel, the impossible bright heat of each other for four days. He’d found himself stumbling sex drunk from the bed to the shower, felt the way Michael had slipped in behind him, mouth tracking warm soft lipped kisses from the point of his shoulder up the line of his neck. He’d managed to get the water on and turned under the shower as Michael pulled them together at the hips and kissed him under the spray, breaking apart to gasp for air and laugh a little in the small porcelain space. Michael was smaller wet, hair pulled in long damp locks to smooth rivulets over his skin. Alex could get lost in the way his lashes clumped together, the way the water beaded to drip from his chin, from his nose, from his crooked elbows.

Alex could still get lost in that memory.

He switched memories before he could see the way he’d turned, looking at the sheets and then at Michael, keeping his face blank against the gut punch of Michael Guerin happy and sleep warm in the morning smile he handed only to Alex. “I can’t.” He’d sniffed, turning away before he’d seen Michael’s face crumble and the way his eyes closed as he rolled onto his back, tongue against his molars as he nodded. Alex didn’t watch him get dressed. He had to make it back to base.


	5. Chapter 5

2009- June 14th Michael POV Roswell

If he took a right, jumping over the curb and slowing to rumble out into the desert he could hide in his memories. He could hide in the way Alex had looked at him June 14th, 2009. He could hide in the way he’d stalked close to where Alex was sitting on the back tailgate of his Chevy, the blankets tossed loosely over the metal. He could think about the way he’d swallowed, watching his mangled fingers touch the bend of Alex’s knee. Michael could get lost in the way Alex had just whispered his name and traced the scar tissue, fingers gentle in the starlight. They could barely look at each other. They could barely stand the sight of all the pain that was between them now, Alex’s hair cut short and tight to his head, the earrings and septum piercing gone. He was leaner, whippet thin and a tangle of tawny muscle and competency. Michael was paler, waiting for summer to burn him dark, touching the tips of his hair nearly blond. He remembers the way his name had sounded, two syllables on Alex’s tongue. He could never forget.

They had seventeen hours. They had seventeen hours and nine of them had been wasted trying to avoid and circle around this thing between them. Michael had finally gotten him in the truck, gotten him in the truck to take for a ride. He’d been so aware of Alex in the cab, the way he stared out the window for the first ten minutes of the drive. Alex seemed to exhale and relax, body finally going loose where Michael could slide his hand across the bench and touch the edge of his pinky to Alex’s thigh. He’d turned then, watching Michael with a focus that burned along his skin, like the threat of flame. Alex had been so quiet and Michael was forever stumbling over his words, shifting and pulling them out of his pockets like they were covered with lint: never good enough, but all he had. When they parked Alex had gotten out of the truck silently, glancing back at Michael with a heavy question of want. Michael stared at the moon as the back of the truck dipped under Alex’s weight. He’d stared at the stars before he’d managed to turn. Michael tried to look everywhere but Alex until the courage and need sparked in him and he simply looked up. Alex was already looking at him.

“Might rain tonight,” Michael managed, wetting his lips.

“I don’t mind.” Alex didn’t look away, voice gone lower, breathy as he watched Michael, eyes liquid in the dark. Michael swallowed visibly, taking a slow step forward and touching his fingers to Alex’s knee. He couldn’t change the scars, couldn’t change the twisted broken bones healed wrong. He couldn’t change the past. Alex was brilliant and brave. He was warm and touching his fingers with a look that shuttered closed around a wild startled look of pain. Michael didn’t want to hurt him. He needed Alex to believe the impossible. He needed him to know that it didn’t matter, not really.

“Alex?”

“Guerin, I don-” Michael had ducked and kissed him silent in the dark in June. He didn’t see him again until the next August.


	6. Chapter 6

Jan 2011 - Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery Alabama, Iraq

Alex switched to the letter. He knew the feel of that paper. He carried it with him through the long trek through a different kind of desert. He carried it under the weight of his small SMART book and the weight of his ABU helmet. He carried it in the top left pocket, folded into something thin and soft, fraying foxed creases. He carried it in a small plastic ziplock. He’d made it through the Academy. He’d made it through the grueling days of PT, the black pits full of broken shredded tires that left soot on his face, staining his skin where the sweat tracked clearer lines through the filth of it. He pushed over 80 in two minutes and pulled over 90 in two minutes; he ran a 5 minute mile. He stretched and screamed into becoming something sharp and quick. He let the AirForce hammer at him, change him fundamentally under the soft way he’d been so young. So very young.

He’d come home as enlisted; he shipped back overseas as Second Lieutenant, gold bar shiny as he stared at the faces of men who had gone tanned and red at the edges in the Iraq sunshine. The letter found him outside of Mosul, sitting in a small shaded area outside the encampment in Hatarah. They’d swim later in the Tigris and Alex would wonder at the history of this place, the endless procession of time as he held the letter that had Michael’s neat block handwriting. He’d always thought it looked like an architect’s font, but he knew Michael was just racing to keep up with his thoughts, ink smearing a little when a line ended and he had to move back to the beginning. He knew it was Michael. He knew it because he’d spent so many years just watching the other boy, the way he smiled when he knew the answer before the teacher had finished asking the question. He knew the way he would write it down on the graph paper he prefered and then cover it with his fingers and stare out the window. He knew Michael had been so bored.

He’d wanted to kiss him. He’d wanted to see if Michael could be surprised.

Alex had been the one to be surprised in the end.

_I don’t want the stars without you._

Just seven words in the center of a piece of graph paper that had been torn untidily from the notebook. He could see the way Michael had sent it before he could regret it and had marveled at the courage. Michael had always been stupidly brave.


	7. Chapter 7

2011 - Afghanistan February

“I want to suck your dick,” someone wearing a lampshade yelled over the stunning noise of Like a G6 that thrummed through the biggest house party Alex had ever seen. "Drunk enough for a go yet, handsome?“ 

Pogue had pulled him off Post for the evening and had fallen in with the worst kind of people: journalists. She’d peeled from his hip the moment they’d crossed the threshold, bounding into the crowd like a loosed rabbit. He’d blinked at the sheer press of bodies, the smell of sweat and weed burning his eyes.

Alex had a moment to look behind him, back to the gated yard they’d crossed and out into the dark streets of Kabul. It wasn’t quiet there. He could turn around and walk away. He could turn around and lay in his bunk and stare at the ceiling. He could pretend it was worth it. He could pretend he didn’t want to call. It wouldn’t be quiet there, either.  
The man in the fancy fringed lampshade pushed an arm out, setting his weight against a palm to the wall at Alex’s back. He was the same height as Alex, lean, tattooed, and barely wearing a pair of battered cargo pants that seemed to stay up through sheer audacity. His chest was patterned with a black geometrical shape at the center of a sprawling mirror image tattoo of swallows and roses. It reminded Alex of something. 

Alex let himself look, obvious and judging before reaching to tip the lampshade back with an indolent finger to fix the other man with an unimpressed eyebrow.  
The man was undeniably handsome, blue eyed, tired, and smiling brightly. He had the deep set hooded eyes that made him seem intent and exhausted.

“You trying to get hit?” Alex shook his head, looking back over the crowd. “I’m not here to teach someone how to take a punch, man.”

“Naw, mate, just on the pull?”

“I’m sure there’s an easier-”

“Not as fun. Honestly. Could use a good scrap, a good root, maybe a gobby, and possibly a night’s sleep. Not necessarily in that order.” He paused, tilting his head and a lock of shiny black hair flopped over his forehead and he frowned. “Although, that order could be nice too.”

“All of those words were english.”

“Keep up.”

“You’re wearing a lampshade.”

“I could die tomorrow and you’re judging my headgear?”

“I am.”

“Rude.”

“You asked to suck my dick before you asked my name.”

“Haven’t gotten an answer yet either, far as I can tell.” The man grinned and ducked, dropping the lamp shade into his palm and then winging it out into the writhing mass of bodies that were sweating through the throbbing dance beat. “I’m Oliver.”

“Alex.” The smile was sharp and Alex lingered in it, enjoying how close the other man was, the shape of his hip bones, and the lurid trail of dark hair that dipped under the waist of his low slung pants. 

They were yelling at each other over the impressive din of the party, the shrieks of laughter, the sound of a water bong, the crackle of bass through the speakers. He could hear the way the floor creaked with the bounce of bodies in time with the beat. The House was four stories in a nearly exact square with a double door entrance that opened to a large space. It was littered with couches, clothes, the occasional coke covered mirror, and journalists from all over the world. He could pick out a few faces he recognized from the news, but mostly it was nondescript people of average attractiveness slick with sweat as they moved against one another. It was desperation and joy in dancing after the sheer adrenaline panic and boredom of war.

A couple was fucking on the far couch. 

*

“Come on, Manes. You’ve been a sad sack bullshit pile of ridiculous military precision for too long.” Pogue had slapped both of her hands against his face and held his gaze. She was shorter than he was with thick muscled shoulders, knotted calves, and a pixie cut. “I’m sick of it. You’re sick of it. Time to get laid. I’d fuck you myself, but I’m not your type.”

“I’m fine, Pogue.”

“I’m fine, Pogue,” she muttered, mimicking his clipped tone perfectly before shaking her head. “It’s a party, Manes. You know, that thing that isn’t war? You’re coming.”

“I-”

“If you say you’re busy, I may shoot you. You’re not busy. You’re pining and I for one am sick of it.”

Alex opened his mouth to argue, closing it just as quickly when she smacked him lovingly once on the jaw and pointed up at him with a determined set of her small mouth.   
“Live a little.”

*

He turned back to the man in front of him, wetting his lips and lifting both eyebrows. “Don’t fall in love.”

“No kissing on the mouth, either?” Oliver quirked a grin, leaning back and taking a half step closer. “I’ve seen that movie.” Alex could feel the heat radiating off of him now, the way he smelled salty and a little bit like gasoline. He could see the way his eyes were red rimmed, adding exhaustion to his smile like an afterthought. He had glossy black hair that tumbled in loose waves around his face, longish on top and cut tight on the sides. It felt very deliberate. Oliver’s gaze tracked quickly, picking over Alex’s skin in sketched glances that seemed to pull at the unravelling edges of him, to read him in the small strokes of his frame. “Come on, Handsome.” 

Alex should have been ready for the touch, should have been prepared for the way Oliver just pushed into his space and cupped him through his jeans, thumb practiced over the shape of him behind denim. He inhaled roughly, gaze going sharp and aware as he stilled and let Oliver palm him.

“I don’t want to be nice.”

“Didn’t ask for nice.” Oliver leaned forward and Alex felt the soft rash of stubble slide against his jaw, ached into the hot pulse throb of want that twitched his dick against the pressure of Oliver’s palm when there was a touch of teeth to his earlobe. Oliver’s voice was a low rich baritone, whiskey and weed rough. Alex wanted to feel it against his skin. “Asked to suck your cock.”

Alex turned his head and stared at Oliver up close. It wasn’t a nice look. It wasn’t anything other than decision and warning in the way his jaw squared. It was as close to an answer as he was going to give. Oliver’s smile went bright. 

Later, when Alex was growling, fingers tangled in the mess of tousled black curls and watching the way Oliver’s mouth looked stretched and red around his cock the other man winked at him- jaunty and reckless. Alex heard himself laugh.


	8. Chapter 8

2011 - Afghanistan February

Alex went from asleep to awake in a sudden full body jerk- awareness slamming into him with a sharp gasp. He tried to stay still, to stay carefully arranged on the slim bed that squawked under his weight with angry springs. This wasn’t his bunk on post. This wasn’t his bunk.

The room was starting to be draped with morning light, pale and nearly white in the way it was here in Afghanistan. This whole country felt three inches closer to the sun. The desert and road dust picked lines of sunlight between buildings, the shadows tracing and cross hatching until the entire city of Kabul looked like a math problem marred with cars and the liquid voices of people. The room wasn’t much more than a box with high ceilings, two beds tucked against opposite walls with two feet of space between them. Each bed had a small wooden desk capped at the end, a rack over the headboard, and one window shared between them half covered with what looked like a cheap rug nailed above the frame. The opposite bed was empty, the mattress bare and cheap looking with rough fabric covering in faded striped pattern. It was half covered in photography equipment that was spilling out of a large camera case. The wall was pinned with pictures.

Alex went from awake and alert to slumped back into the lumpy mattress in a breath. He’d made it through the night without waking to the peppering crackle of gunfire, without the raucous shout of voices, the thump of helicopter blades. He’d made it through the night without waking. It wasn’t much sleep- a few hours at most, but it was enough. He was sore, muscles in need of a languorous stretch and thighs hot with the rash of stubble burn. He huffed a breath, closing his eyes and smirked at the ceiling.

“That’s smug. You’re smug,” came a vibrant rasping baritone, muffled behind a toothbrush and paused in the doorway. Alex didn’t want to look. He was enjoying the moment of ridiculous normalcy in this tiny bedroom somewhere across the world from what felt right.

“Sated?” He rubbed at his eyes and shifted in a long arch, heels smudging the sheets tangled at the end of the bed against the metal frame.

“I’d hope so. Don’t much want to wake up to insults. Talented, that’s me.”

“Humble.”

“Fuck humble. Humble doesn’t get four orgasms and a pulled groin.”

Alex slitted his eyes open and looked at the man leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. “Should have stretched.” 

The man was lean, thin in a way that suggested sprinting and soccer calves. He was freckled with tattoos, a large chest piece that sprawled just under his collarbones and over his shoulders before stumbling down his arms to the backs of his hands. There were strings of numbers along his left ribs, smaller tangles of geometry over his stomach, and an enticing display of lines that all swirled over his hips. Alex has a sudden and achingly vivid memory of the way his hands fit against the cut of hipbone and his thumbs could trace the smooth arch of those lines when he pulled the man close and fucked deep with a snarl. 

“Honestly?” Oliver pointed at Alex with his toothbrush. “Didn’t expect you to actually say yes.”

“There are people who turn down blowjobs?” Alex shook his head. “Idiots.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Oliver shoved the toothbrush back into his mouth like he was punctuating the affront that lifted his eyebrows and widened his blue eyes before turning and padding back out of the doorway. He was wearing a towel and bitemarks, a few long finger burns rubbing lines down his spine.

Alex had the day before returning to Post. He had the day to pull himself back together and into military precision. He had the day to do everything he could to not think.   
Instead, he sighed and rolled to sit, feet on the cold floor that was a little gritty with sand that swirled relentlessly across the streets, battered against the buildings, and colored the world a soft tan. It had found its home here too. Alex closed his eyes and rolled his head on his shoulders before lifting his arms and sighing into the sweet burn of the stretch. He woke his body up one part at a time before heaving to his feet and easing into a forward fold, palms flat on the ground. He held it through the burn in his lower back, his hamstrings, his heart. He hadn’t called Michael. He hadn’t called.

But he’d wanted to. 

He’d fingered his phone in the cab as they drove through the evening, lights striping the windows with yellow, green, and blue before turning down a back alley that crawled through the buildings and ended at a parking lot stocked with nondescript SUV’s and a passel of private security details. 

He’d wanted to even as Pogue reached up and unbuttoned the shirt he’d twisted into. He’d wanted to even as he shoved and eeled through the crowd the night before, flinching away from touch and finding the kitchen and the glorious length of countertop completely covered in bottles of booze. He’d wanted to as he watched Pogue porpoise through the dance floor. He’d wanted to even as Oliver- his name was Oliver- had hit his knees in the dim light of the bathroom and pushed Alex back against the soft loamy paint on the walls, the way it peeled and bubbled back from the ceiling. He’d wanted to even as he closed his eyes on a gasp when Oliver’s tongue tasted at him curiously.

He couldn’t let himself linger in the way he’d remembered the way Michael’s hair curled around his knuckles. He couldn’t let himself linger in the way his skin felt hot under his mouth. He couldn’t let himself think about the quiet aching moans he managed when they moved together. He couldn’t; he shouldn’t, but he did. If he let himself remember, he’d call.  
Instead, he reached, placing his hands on the floor and stretched back into plank and started pushing. He could focus on the way he needed to maintain form, the way the spot he’d picked to watch on the wall had a crack that meandered up from the floor board like a river. He exhaled on the push, inhaled on the drop, moving in a slow fluid rhythm. He found purpose in the burn. He found peace in the motion.

“Ah fuck.” He didn’t glance over. “You’re military?”

“Airforce.”

“Fuck.”

“We did that.”

“I thought you were just new in country- hadn’t had a chance to shake loose the underpinnings yet.”

“Nope. Been here for almost seven months.”

“Bagram?”

Alex nodded and kept pushing. “This going to be a problem?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking that of you?” Oliver stepped over him, reaching to snag a pair of faded blue jeans from the small wardrobe tucked into the corner. Alex smirked at the drop of the towel and the way the other man wobbled slightly, the arch of his foot and ankle working as he kept his balance and stepped into the denim one leg at a time before hooking it easily up around his hips. 

“Don’t ask-”

“Don’t tell?” Oliver frowned at him and dropped to a squat, eyes lingering on the flex of muscle in his arm before reaching to touch absently at the bend in Alex’s wrists. “That’s done a goner, yeah?”

Alex paused at the apex of the push-up, holding it with a small smug quirk of brow. “Shouldn’t I be more worried about the journalist?”

“I don’t kiss and tell, love.”

“Was there kissing?”

“I don’t bite and tell, love.”

“Noted.”

Oliver was squatting just to his left. “Photojournalist.” To his right was the door, a bicycle leaning against the opposite side of the hall. 

Alex could hear people starting to wake up. He could hear the raucous screams of people on the roof who had decided to stay awake and continue the party. He could hear the sound of car horns and yelling squeezing in the window and across the floor. The walls were thin and somewhere a floor beneath them a woman’s voice hazed with lust, soft and rhythmic in her moans. Oliver was squatting to his left, hunkered in a taut line of denim over his thighs, long boned feet with high arches, and a scruffy smile under his fucked out hair. “Hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Not a big talker?”

“You want my life story, Oliver?”

“I want-”

“Careful.”

Oliver quirked an eyebrow at him, grin going sharp and pleased. “I want to take your picture and I want waffles.”

“I’m not-” Alex frowned, pulling his knees up and sitting back on his heels to try and decide if Oliver was fucking with him. “I’m square shaped and normal looking.”

“You a professional photographer, love?”

“I-”

“That’s what I thought.” Oliver reached, grabbing the bed frame to heave to his feet and wave a general hand in Alex’s direction. “Put on pants before I get ideas.” He snagged an old band shirt from the desktop, twisting into it before shoving his feet into a pair of expensive looking sandals. Alex grabbed his clothes from where they’d been left on the floor, frowning a little at the wrinkled mess of his white shirt. “There’s a hole in the wall that makes coffee that will put hair on your chest.” Oliver took a half step closer, putting a warm hand on Alex’s hip as he reached past him to grab a battered metal frame Minolta from the bed. It had a short stubby lens and cracking leather case, but the strap was new and the lens cap clean. “Heard you like that.” He winked and turned, walking out of the room like he knew Alex would follow.

Alex could stay in the room with the warm sunshine sheets and memories, or he could follow Oliver down the hall. It wasn’t much of a choice in the end.


	9. Chapter 9

2011- Afghanistan April

The mountains here weren’t soft, sharp ridged and cresting out of the desert with purpose, prickled with pines and etching something ominous against the deep oranges and reds of sunset. The helicopter swayed left to right, a lolling gait that slipped through the canyon, shoulder to shoulder with another that was pushing them deep into the Baba range heading toward the Kandahar to investigate a rash of bombings linked to a local militant cell. They were edging away from the higher peaks of the Hindu Kush, traveling along the Arghandab River towards the city. Alex was watching the mountains with a vague sense of wonder, strapped into the seat with the open sides whipping the cooler cleaner air around the belly. 

SSG Garcia was ignoring him, probably asleep where she had her head tilted back against the uncomfortable seat. She had a soft face, lovely dark eyes, and a full mouth prone to a flat lined frown. It hadn’t changed much in three years, still sardonic as she offered him a hand and a quick tart taunt. SSG Lowe was chewing gum, rifle across his knees as he faced out to the opposite side of the bird. 

“You look… content,” TSG Richards commented, casual around a smile that was always half present on his face. He was the tallest of them, topping an easy six foot with a broad planed face and tight fade and tidy lineup that he maintained religiously.

“You look nosy,” Alex replied, thumb touching the lever that moved his rifle from safety, to automatic, to semi-automatic.

“That’s just his face, Sir.” Lowe didn’t even turn around, gum a wet sound even over the headgear and the constant thrumming beat of the helicopter blades. He was a dark haired and wiry with his children’s names tattooed in a cursive font over his heart. He’d quit smoking when Jenny had been born, a pack of gum always tucked into his side pocket. “It’s a notably nosy face.” 

“Shut the fuck up, Lowe.” Richards reached over, shoving at the back of Lowe’s helmet with a wide hand.

“Let the man get some in peace, Richards.”

“I didn’t say shit about him-”

“Enough.” Garcia wasn’t asleep, low alto a soft warning that shut the other two up quickly and let Alex turn back out to watch the mountains in the deep orange haze of sunset. The river below them like a line of fire cutting black between the shadows. “Nobody needs to know if Sir got his dick sucked.”

“That’s true.” Alex shook his head. “And you can still call me Manes, Garcia.”

“No, Sir. That’s against the rules, Sir.”

“Glad to know you’re proud of me.” 

Alex glanced over and caught the quick smile that flickered over his second’s mouth.


	10. Chapter 10

2011- Afghanistan September

The small bunk at the back of the temporary barracks was curtained off from the cots the rest of the squad occupied, split by a basic, and nearly useless, plywood wall that kept the male and female cots separated. The latrines were outside and downwind. The thin walls fluttered near the peak of the curved roof. Alex was sitting on the edge of his bunk, rubbing his face and trying to pick the ever present grit from the corners of his eyes when the fabric flipped back and the reason he was hiding dropped a battered bag just inside the small space.

Oliver Thomas was standing in comfortable looking hiking boots, faded clay colored pants with utilitarian pockets. A massive utility belt bristling with camera equipment: replacement lenses, batteries, and a pouch was clasped over a stained white t-shirt. He’d unbuttoned his dun colored top shirt; it now hung around his lean sides. He was wearing a tan and brown keffiyeh and an unbearable unnecessary sexiness. Oliver Thomas was supposed to be in his past. Oliver Thomas pulled the keffiyeh back off his sloppy tousled dark curls and grinned at him.

“Got to stop meeting like this, mate.”

“You shouldn’t be here.” Alex tore his gaze from where it was lingering on where Oliver was unbuckling the utility belt, a flash of tanned tattooed skin with those delicate curving black lines over his hips.

“Nah. It’s my job, actually.” Oliver pointed at the opposite bunk. “That mine then?”

“Tell me you didn’t-”

“Full of yourself.” Oliver walked to the empty bunk and reached, shoving at the thin mattress, scratchy blanket, and creaking springs with a quick hand. The cot groaned once, the listless pillow simply bending and sighing back to flat. He frowned at it, nose wrinkling before turning and dropping to sit with a bludgeon of noise. “Doing an embed. Got a whole stern talking to by your Major about not sleeping with your birds. Apparently the accent is catnip.” Oliver glanced up. “Didn’t say nothing about shagging you, mind.”

Alex was frowning at him, unamused at the wry cheeky grin the other man tossed him. “It’s not safe.”

“Says the man in the military uniform.” 

The encampment his small squad had been sent to was perched high on a peak blasted and scraped flat. The temporary barracks were heavy canvas strapped over curving metal bones. It was ringed with a hip high wall of the stone rubble that bubbled higher in front of the artillery mount. The mountains knuckled along the river that swayed easy hipped and lolling along the valley floor. To the West, the desert stretched cold and unforgiving towards Iraq. To the East, the valley was lush and green along the riverbanks, the trees quivering in the shadow of the lower foothills. The ground flight was composed of 25 men and women. His Squad command was new and a bit terrifying, but his specific tactical sub unit was ready. His pride in his squadron was unparalleled: Garcia, Richards, Lowe, and Pogue had been his people before he’d gone for the jump to commissioned officer. 

He’d had a family, but he’d never had this. 

“Oliver.”

“So you do remember?” Oliver flicked his eyes up from where he’d just casually continued to undress. “Was beginning to think you were a bit addled.”

“Stop baiting me and listen. I do not have time to babysit a civilian. There’s been a spike in IED activity in the area we’re heading. I-”

“I’ve been working in Afghanistan for three years,” Oliver interrupted casually, voice plain and low. He didn’t look up from where he was untying his boots. “This is my fifth embed. First with the airforce. I’ve mostly been working with the marines. I was held hostage in year two for three months. Still have a ringing in my left ear that’s pretty fucked, but the RAW was bought by Reuters. I’ve shot insurgents, four countries’ militaries, the firebombing of schools, children bleeding in the dust of a bombed building. You’re not the only one who can do some machine gunning, mate. And that’s just what I’ve caught here in Afghanistan and doesn’t include my time in Africa, Iraq, Israel, Bosnia, and well, I don’t count the lovely little fluff piece I did on sheep herding in New Zealand because that was just an excuse to go to the little hobbit houses-”

“Holes. They’re called holes.”

“Fuckin’ knew you were a nerd.”

“Stop being cute, this is serious.”

“Careful, you just called me cute. Might think you’re hitting on me.” Oliver pushed one heavy boot off with the other toe, groaning happily and cracking his toes in the thick socks. He leaned back on his palms and toed the other off with a clatter. “I’m starting to get a bit offended to be honest. I’m a professional. I’ll keep my hands to myself. You focus on you if that’s what you want and I’ll just take the pictures. You’ll be Bokeh.” He waved a hand and lifted both feet and spun, stretching out to go boneless on the cot. “You’re unit is stupidly photogenic, probably why you’ve been chosen. Looking forward to getting a chance to get that Richards’ smile on film.” Oliver blew out a long breath and flicked his green eyes back to where Alex was watching him. “Won’t even look your way.”

“That’s probably best.”

“Right.”

Later, in the quiet witching hour, the moon a perfectly cut half casting blue and navy shadows across the valley, the dark close and warm as the ceiling shifted in the breeze that kicked into a full gale sprint when the air went cool, Alex stared at the speckling light that showed the impression of stars. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Too right you are.” Oliver’s voice was soft, half asleep and Alex rolled his eyes, frowning before attempting to get some sleep.

The last time he’d seen Oliver he’d been turning a corner, walking backwards to get the last glance at the man’s glossy dark hair where it was blundering around his face. Alex had thought about the way his eyes were heavy lidded, hooded and laughing around a straight nose, high cheekbones, and sharp jaw. He’d enjoyed the way the man’s nimble tongue had flickered to the side of his mouth. He’d enjoyed the vague wave. He’d enjoyed so many things about the other man- a sudden flash of the long line of his spine rolling under his fingers, the sweat damp heat of his hairline and the soft chuff of laughter when he’d tugged his head back, leveraging for a better angle. They didn’t say goodbye, just a soft touch of fingers to the back of his wrist.

He’d forgotten how handsome he was, but Michael Guerin had that effect on people- blotting them out like temporary lens flares that faded into the impossible golden hour beauty that was his smile. 

The last time he’d seen Michael he’d been livid, angry and yanking his arm from Alex’s touch, yanking away as he slammed out the door to the motel room. Alex had been staring after him, after the cloud of dust the shitty blue chevy left as it heaved up over the curb with a shriek of rusty ball joints. Alex could still feel the heat of his kisses. He could still feel the slight rash of stubble. He could smell him, that warm rich body smell with a touch of spice and gasoline, the sharper twang of engine grease. 

They’d crashed into walls. Michael had been desperate and Alex had been bubbling with laughter, relief that he still wanted him, relief that he was still wanted. A year of deserts and deployments between them. A year of arrests and parole hearings. A year and Alex felt like crying, Michael’s name in his mouth in a breathless cadence of two syllables as they ripped at clothes and ripped at reasons not to touch. 

“How long do I get you this time?” Guerin was tracing a soft arc over his lower back, fingers taking a wondering path from his hip around and up to spread over the shape of his shoulder-blade.

Alex had glanced over, down at the carpet under his feet and then to the side, catching Michael from his peripheral. He knew his hair was wild, cowlicked and tangled. He knew because Michael was a wrecked sprawl face down in the sheets, one corner pulled from the mattress and all of the pillows somewhere on the floor. “Two weeks.”

The bed moved as Michael pushed up and Alex nearly kissed him again at the breathless hopeful smile. “Fuck. You serious?”

Alex nodded. “Gotta be careful-”

“DADT was repealed. We can-”

“Guerin.” He caught Michael’s wrist and held it tightly, feeling the soft pound of his pulse under his fingertips. He closed his eyes, almost physically aware of the way Guerin’s disappointment flickered hot like rage and then went dark.

“Right.” 

Two weeks and it ended with a silent simmering anger and Alex wishing he knew how to fix this thing between them. Now, he sat in the dark with a stranger. Now, he sat in the silence between them, the strange wobbling dark.

“So, what’s his name then?” Oliver’s voice slipped along the floor, barely more than a whisper.

“Michael.” Alex cleared his throat lightly and closed his eyes. “His name is Michael.” There was a pause and Alex could nearly hear Oliver nodding. “Yours?”

“Tayn.” Oliver’s voice cracked and Alex’s throat knew that sharp pain. “His name was Tayn.”

“How-”

“Drowned. Stupid fuck drowned.” There was a bitter noise and Oliver swiped at his face, the barest suggestion of motion in the dark. “You?”

Alex hesitated, the silence stretching. “My father caught us.”

“Bad?”

“Worse.” His jaw worked like he was trying to eat the words, to eat the sins of the past. “He took a hammer to his hand.”

The silence they slipped into was shared, like a matched set of grief. It stretched and pulled the air taut between them. Alex could imagine the way the shadows were moving slowly with the turn of the moon. He could imagine the way the night patrol were laughing out in the dark, voices echoing along the ridge. He could imagine that half a world away Michael Guerin was working in the sunshine, the smell of horses and leather clinging to his curls. He could imagine a life in the dark that included the feel of his scars.

He didn’t think about the fact that he’d never told anyone Michael’s name before.


	11. Chapter 11

2011- Afghanistan October

SSG Lowe carries two pounds of extra gear whenever they deploy out into the city. He’s got his wedding ring, a pair of his wife’s silky panties, a hot wheels firebird, a tattoo shaped like a heart his oldest daughter drew when she was three, and a metal lunchbox full of letters, hand-made macaroni art, and one small four legged creature made out of clay that might be smiling or might be snarling. He carries his family with him wherever he goes. He’s got a plastic bag of polaroids tucked into the thigh pocket of his ABU’s. There’s an energy to him, he’s restless and talkative. They started giving him packs of gum when he quit smoking. 

Alex knows that he carries two pounds more than he should because he is a man in love. His pretty wife has invited all of them to Christmas every year. Lowe is sure that one day they’ll all make it. He keeps a sketchbook in his breast pocket. He draws the world in idle lines. He was never good enough for art school he tells them. They all disagree. He will shake his head and smile at them before showing them the page that his boy drew on. “He’s got it. He’s so talented.”

They’re never sure if it’s a cat or a goat that his boy has drawn. He shows it off with a wry grin whenever someone asks about his oldest boy Chase. SSG Ben Lowe is a wiry man from the rural plains of north carolina, tucked back against the mountains. He’s got a small plot of land where he’d built a log house with a fireplace, a barn, and a greenhouse. He has a pretty wife with pale skin and freckles, dimpled and sweet who would ship them cookies and whatever collected letters her church sent. Ben has messy cowlicked dark hair, wicked blue eyes, and the ability to make everyone laugh. 

He’ll tell everyone he meets about his beautiful wife. He’ll tell their interpreter about his two boys (Chase and Asher) and his two girls (Olivia and Emiline). He’ll show off pictures of buck toothed black haired kids grinning at him while holding up bullfrogs they’ve fished out of the lake behind the house.

Lowe wears sleek blue tinted sunglasses under his helmet, hair just long enough to curl out from under the brim. He smiles, crooked and sharp- dimpled and bites down on a nearly neon yellow wad of gum between his teeth. He’s easy in his skin and the best shot of them all, rifle canted against his knee as he starts singing off key and loud over the headsets.

He and Alex had met just after AIT, pushed together by fate and bureaucracy. Ben had taken one look at Alex and laughed, clapping his hands and shaking his head. Alex had been terrified of the bible Ben kept on his bedside table. He’d been afraid of the lectures; he tensed and waited for the first week. He waited and waited and Ben Lowe just shrugged into his life and started talking about his beautiful fiance and the kid they had when they were in high school. He talked about the way his whole world had changed the moment he’d held the ugly bundle of red faced indignance and named him Chase. He’d talk about how he’d promised that kid, promised him that he’d be there for him from the moment he drew his first breath to the moment Lowe took his last.

Alex had wondered if that was what fatherhood was supposed to look like.

Ben Lowe didn’t care that Alex Manes was gay. Ben Lowe didn’t care that his leader liked men, just that he had a better singing voice and that he would send his kids christmas gifts. He didn’t care that Alex was gay, just that he was trying his best to keep them all alive.

“You going to sleep with the journalist?”

“Photojournalist,” Alex corrected, staring out at the mountains. They’d been paused in this embed for over three weeks, waiting for the clearance and mission status to move down from the mountaintop into Kandahar. 

“Nice evade,” Lowe huffed, palming the pile of stone that acted as a wall and hefting himself up to sit. He liked to bang his heels against the stone and pitch pebbles into the valley. “He’s -”

“Off limits,” Alex interrupted before Lowe could get on one of his longer impish needlings.

“Tina’s daddy took a shotgun after me when we found out she was pregnant.”

“You sure he just didn’t want to shoot you in general?”

“Funny, Manes. You’re funny, sir.”

Alex swallowed the smile and didn’t look over. If he looked he was taking the bait. “I’ve been reliably informed that this information is accurate.”

“Accurate my delightfully toned as-.”

“Is there a point, Ben?” Alex was watching the way the sun dappled on the river at the base of the valley, sparkling and rippled.

“I think you should fuck him, Sir.” Lowe nodded. “Respectfully.”

“I think you should mind you own.” Alex ducked his head, stretching his fingers out and not thinking about how straight they were, how perfectly intact they were. 

“Musicians’ hands,” Michael would whisper against his fingertips. He would look sad for a breath, eyes shuttering before he’d touch his teeth to Alex’s knuckles and pull him close. 

Michael would pull him close like it didn’t hurt. He’d pull him close like he hadn’t been the reason it was never quiet anymore.

“I dare you to get up off your ass and do something,” Lowe said, voice just a simple weighted taunt. “You know you want to.” 

He was talking about Oliver. He was talking about the conversations in the dark that the small plywood wall couldn’t muffle. He was talking about something he thought he understood. He was talking as a friend who wanted Alex to be happy.

Lowe believed in love. He’d found it at fourteen and married it as soon as he turned eighteen. He’d been threatened, but never broken. He had a happy ending. 

Alex closed his eyes on the first thing his mind supplied: waiting in front of the UFO Emporium and pushing both hands onto the hood of Michael Guerin’s shitty chevy. Pushing both hands onto the hood and watching him through the dusty windshield. They’d stare at each other out in the open and he’d just swallow back the apology that would never be enough and Michael would lean an arm out the open window. 

“Wanna go for a ride?”

And Alex would go. He would be able to go. Alex would be the one to move first, the one to step closer. He’d be the one to watch Michael’s eyes go soft and startled- happy.

“It’s not that easy, Lowe.”

Lowe sniffed, thumb pushing his wedding ring around his knuckle. Alex could feel him watching him, weighing that answer. He felt the clap of palm to his arm, familiar and familial. He looked over then and Lowe’s blue eyes were sharp, shrewd. This was a man who could pick a picture out with a few simple lines on paper. Lowe was a man who loved in a very simple way.

“Then I’ll pray that it could be.” He nodded once. Lowe was a man of faith.

Sometimes, that gave Alex hope.


	12. Chapter 12

2011- Afghanistan November

It’s weird the parts of that moment Alex remembers later. He swears he could hear the way the dirt under his boot crunched and twisted with the step he took. He swears that he could hear the strangled growling of a dog in an alley two streets back- fighting over a bag of chips that glittered bright in the midday sun. They were moving through the streets, people schooling around them like fish. The children paused their scuffled game of soccer. A lanky boy with shaggy dark hair and wide light brown eyes grabbed the battered soccer ball and clutched it to his shirt. It was a polo with red stripes and a white collar. 

He’d been wearing tan colored shorts and skinned knees, white sneakers that were dust colored now as he stared at them as they moved through the streets.  
He remembers him clearly because Oliver had paused, smiled at the kid and gestured a question with his camera. He remembers the way the kid had just tucked his chin to the side and shrugged. He remembers because the print is beautiful- a black and white shot with lighting like lace through the building that crumbled behind him. He remembers because Oliver had smiled and turned to look at him, to check to see if Alex had seen the beauty he’d seen.

And then he’d been gone.

It always struck Alex as strange that he could remember the perfect vivid pink of a spot of graffiti on the wall to his left but not if Oliver had looked scared. He remembers that Lowe was behind him, rifle slung loose and ready in the rear rifleman position while Richards scanned ahead, eyes sharp under the dark polarized lenses of his sunglasses. Garcia was just to his right, closest to Oliver where she was watching the children with a half smirk. The new kid, Puirri was bent, heel kicked over his knee where he was prying a bit of gravel from the tread of his pretty new boots, the tan suede of the leather still velvety and pristine. The toe of Alex’s boots were nearly smooth, battered and well loved.

“Gum?” Oliver had held out a stick to Lowe as they’d parked the HUMVEE outside the low stone wall on the outskirts of the town. It was a small village that was just a pass through from Kotali Murcha into Kandahar proper.

“I love you,” Lowe took the gum like he was accepting a wedding ring, swooning out the door to put boots on the ground. He grinned brightly at the quick considering look Oliver tossed him.

“Not quite my type.”

“Rude. I am very attractive. Richards, explain to the man how attractive I am.”

“He’s not much to look at, Thomas, but he’s hornier than a ten peckered owl.” Richards gave the wide startlingly lovely smile that turned adroitly up at the corners. It matched the low timber of his laugh when Lowe blustered angrily. “Your words not mine, Lowe.”

“Boys.” Garcia flipped the side of her rifle, checking the chamber with a quick hand before slapping Lowe’s helmut. “Keep it in your pants.”

“Killjoy." 

“You never tell him to keep it in his pants.”

"Tighten up,” Alex said, voice a low command as Piurri held out a hand for Oliver to take the bag of gear as the other man hooked out of the front seat and squinted against the midday sun. He was settling into the rhythm of their movements easily, charming and problematic. “One roll. Make it quick.”

Oliver nodded, plucking a light reader from his bag and slinging it into a side pocket. “You’re feeling generous.”

“I could feel you drooling over the graffiti from twenty yards.”

“Subtle.” Oliver had turned, touching his tongue to his top lip and Alex had cleared his throat and waved his squad into formation.

“Stay alert. Garcia, you’re on Thomas. Piurri take flank. Rich-”

“Point, Yes Sir.”

Lowe tucked the wrapper from his gum into his pocket and touched his chinstrap twice before rattling into motion. They moved easily, trucking up the slight incline and into the city. It was a Tuesday.

Alex watched the edges of Oliver keffiyeh flicker in the wind, his dark curls bounce around his face, and the way his eyes focused quickly with intent. He’d been wearing the tan utility pants, ivory henley, a bullet proof vest with a press label velcroed to the back, the dark forest green keffiyeh, and a hefty bag of camera gear. He always strapped the thick leather camera harness over the vest, grinning up at Alex.

“Makes me feel like a cowboy.”

“That’s not what cowboys look like.”

“You’d know, yeah?”

Alex swallowed, thinking about the quick startling light of Michael’s grin when the truck kicked over a short bump, rocking and bucking from side to side with a small whoop as they drifted off the highway and into the desert plains. The wind scented with the soft wet green of mesquite, the aching endless drought of summer, and the sour smell of Michael sweating into the grease stains on his t-shirt.

“Yeah, I’d know.”

It was a Tuesday in November and Alex couldn’t remember when Thanksgiving was until Lowe’s pretty wife sent them a box full Jiffy mix, creamed corn, and deliberate handwritten instructions on how to make corn casserole. He couldn’t remember when Thanksgiving was, but he could remember the specific neon yellow of Lowe’s gum in the dirt and the way the sunlight seemed to go pink for a breath before the light strobed white and hot. He can’t remember holidays, but he can remember the specific metallic click that lay under the sound of a boot, the sound of a camera shutter, and the deafening noise of an explosion.

He thinks that’s why he turned; he thinks that’s why his mouth was open on Oliver’s name when the world went chaotic white, then pink, then the force of it shoved him off his feet. He’s been hit so often it almost felt familiar, like he’d bounce off a locker and into a giant gravel covered fist. It felt like he’d been shoved across the hall again except this time it lifted him off his feet and flung him back five feet to stare dumbly at the sky with the taste of fire and ash in his mouth.

“What was he like?" 

"Stupid. He was so fucking stupid.” Oliver had laughed, hands crossed over his stomach as they stared at the ceiling in the bunks. “Beautiful, though. Brilliant. But a right idiot.”

Alex wanted to turn his head and trace the feel of love on Oliver’s mouth. It made his voice go rich and riddled with a specific kind of pain- like the sweet spice that made ginger snap cookies delicious and painful. “Beautiful and stupid?”

“He was a surfer. I don’t know what I was expecting. Like falling in love with a drunk seal who could hold his breath forev-”

“Useful.”

“You have no idea.” Oliver sniffed and the smile that came around the quiet noise of heartbreak cut Alex almost as much as it felt soothing like a bruise. “Whenever we would go somewhere, I would be trying to take his picture but he’d be picking up trash. Just trash, like some sort of helpful magpie- not the shitty bastards that dive bomb you in the summer, but the ones that you read about in books, yeah?” Oliver shrugged, Alex could hear it in the creak of the cot. “Bottles and caps and bits of shiny things. Weighed him down and he’d just empty it all into the trash cans.” Oliver sucked his teeth. “He loved me though, don’t much know why. But he did and-”

“I get it.”

“That man loved trash.” Oliver turned and Alex looked back. It was a moment in the dark and Alex let himself remember what his beard felt like under his tongue- the crackling coarse hair and the way he snarled when Alex shoved deeper. Oliver fucked like a dare and Alex was done backing down.

He knew before he hit his back that Oliver was gone. He knew, the blast felt like he’d been made of metal, brittle and rung like a sledgehammer to a bell. He wondered if Oliver held his breath. He wondered if anyone would notice. It was chaos and there was yelling, the slower rumble of cement and stone rambling into place. He was picking himself up, coughing around the tightness in his chest, the breath knocked out of him. He’d learned not to panic, learned by rote to close his eyes and take a slow long breath.

“If you exhale slower it helps, Squirt.” Hunter had a way of helping him even as he shoved him back into the dirt.

He wanted to tell Hunter that he was full of shit. A slow breath didn’t help, not this.

The square was hazy with dust, a black smear in the center and a cratered car with windows gone in the shock wave. The low whine in his ears was popping with a crackle of noise. There was a battered soccer ball to the left, dented and deflated next to one dusty white sneaker. The lace work of light cut lines across the space, the ringing just a long whine that continued even as the world slammed back to full volume. He could hear screaming, gunfire, the long howl of a dog, and the sound of Richards yelling for them to report. Richards was firing towards the building that provided cover. Lowe moving quick to pull Garcia to cover. He could hear Lowe coughing even as he swung his rifle up and took aim. Piurri was silent, staring at the black smear in the center of the square before Lowe shoved him into motion- shoved him to where Garcia was sprawled face down in the dirt.

Alex shook his head like he could shake the scene back to some semblance of okay. There was gunfire, screaming, pain, and chaos. 

"Stop." He coughed, blinking at where Oliver had been.

The night before he'd been carefully cleaning his lenses, one at a time with a soft cloth. He picked them up and studied them carefully and Alex had let his fingers linger at the soft curl that fell over his brow. Oliver had looked up at him. "I miss him." 

Alex had nodded like he understood.

"He had this quote they said at his paddle out." Oliver wet his lips, turning to press an absent fond kiss to Alex's wrist before moving back to the careful cleaning. " _This is how I would die into the love I have for you: as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight._ " 

The room was quiet, the cold finally creeping in to the Afghan nights, temperatures breaking from the constant warmth to a sticky edged cool that kept his squad out staring at the mountains. Their clearance had come in and Lowe was writing a letter to his kids. Their clearance had come in and Alex had to take his men to danger and back. Oliver was handing him something he wasn't sure how to hold. 

"That's-"

"Romantic."

"Not quite what I was going for." Alex ducked his head, frowning at his fingertips before glancing back. Later, he would regret the suspicion in his voice. "Didn't take you for a romantic."

Oliver glanced over and there was something full and welling in his blue eyes. "Have to be to do this job, Alex."

Garcia was face down in the dirt and Piurri was checking her carefully. Lowe and Richards were firing into buildings. There was a woman screaming in Pashto and the softer ticking noise of hot metal. Richards was scanning the area over his rifle, jaw hard. He shifted, precise and trained across the rooftops, across the battered wall that crumbled a little more in the blast. Alex watched him scout for threats even as Lowe made it to where he was sitting in the dirt.

"Sir."

"Stop. Stop firing." He shook his head again, trying to get his feet under him and wobbled with one hand in the dirt as he waved them to fall back. "Call it in."

The sky was a soft clear blue and there was one white sneaker in the dirt next to a battered soccer ball. He wanted to tip his chin at it, to draw Oliver’s attention to the small little set scene of violence and pain.

Oliver was gone.

He was gone and all Alex could think of was that he had to get home. He had to see that reckless smile under a tumble of soft brown curls one more time, hear the soft whoop as the ball joints creaked. He wanted to see the sly look from under heavy lashes, the way the smile started to curl the edge of Michael’s mouth like a promise. 

Alex had to get the taste of ash out of his mouth.


	13. Chapter 13

2014 - Santorini July

Alex Manes loved visiting the Greek archipelago on short leave. He went there when he needed to forget. He understood the desert, it was familiar and endlessly dry. He understood the heat of it, the shape of it. He couldn’t escape nostalgia when the press of it left him sweating and aching in the Afghanistan nights. The first time he’d come here he’d spent the day staring out at the water. He’d spent the day moving through the city streets and pausing stunned at the shifting view. The water in the bay of Mykonos was sliding through the scale of blue, moving from the impossible gradient of teal and blue marble turquoise into softer royals and navy as the sky turned pink and pale purple. The buildings seemed to stand up straight in the day, puffed chested and painted a loamy white that made the streets seem impossibly bright. Alex moved down one corridor after the other, trying to get lost in a foreign country. 

He’d gotten lost in a stranger instead.

He’d left his squad back at the small ferry port. They’d catcalled, clambering over each other to smile and wave, wishing him luck loudly. Alex just slipped his mirrored aviators on and tossed them a flick of eyebrow in reply.

The air felt cooler, wet with promise of salt and spectacular views. The city itself opened for him as he walked at a casual amble. He liked the feel of the large smooth stones in the street and the way everything felt blue and white- exotic and old. He liked the way the breeze would clip off the water and find him, pushing under the collar of his white linen shirt and flapping the hem around his hips. He cuffed his loose khakis around his ankles to walk the water’s edge, feeling the fading sun crisp the tip of his nose. He tasted salt and paused in the lengthening shadows to watch the bustle of the restaurants that spilled into the twilight.

He’d been here often enough that he knew where he was going now. He knew to take a left at the statue of Leonidas and follow the footpath along the water before ducking down the back alley to the canopy that matched the irrepressible blue that was everywhere on the island. He paused at the end of the alley before wetting his lips at the way his skin prickled in anticipation.

The bar was decently busy, the noise of it moving in soft waves that eddied around the tables and up to the bar top itself. The woman carrying drinks paused to look at him, eyebrows lifting. She was familiar- small, black haired with a catlike beauty. She had thickly lined eyes that seemed nearly gold in contrast and wicked smile. Phaedra, that was her name. There was very little pause between her recognition and the call to the man behind the bar. 

“Δαμιανός! Ο άνθρωπος σας είναι πίσω.” Alex translated quickly in his head, stumbling on the way the words slurred around her mouth quickly, crashing into a smooth stream instead of clear words. Damianos, your man is back.

Alex watched Damianos look up, tilting his head to the side as he let himself just look for a moment, smile slipping to spread over his face at the utter delight on the young man’s face. Damianos was a deeply tanned with straight white teeth in a broad smile. He had two matched dimples and lush black curls that glossed around thick black eyebrows and dark hooded eyes. He looked like a classic greek statue with the lean hips under broad shoulders and sculpted jaw. He didn’t pause as he clapped the shaker tins together against themselves and tossed them to shake. Alex pulled his sunglasses off, tucking them into the front of his white shirt and let himself be hungry.

He wouldn’t be alone tonight.

The moment his hunger cracked through him was visible in the small stumble in the rhythm of the shaken drinks. He liked that he had this effect on the other man, liked that just looking at him with need was still enough to hold his attention. The first time he’d been unable to look away as Damianos walked dripping out of the ocean, shaking the salt water out of his curls and turned to laugh back at his friend who was pouring the water out of their snorkeling mask. Alex had been pinned in place with want. The strip of pale skin where the other man’s swim shorts slipped down his hips mouthwatering. He’d startled slightly when he realized the other man was staring back, wetting his lips and tilting his head in silent question.

Alex Manes hadn’t thought too hard about the way he’d wanted to grab those glossy black curls and tug the man’s head back. He hadn’t thought too much about the way the cut of the other man’s jaw had caught his eye in heart stopping hope before it had sunk again in quiet disappointment. He’d let himself fold into the simple act of desire instead. It was easier. It was easier to hold the gaze and wet his lips, watching the way Damian’s eyes had flicked to his mouth and then back up.

They’d fucked in an alley, unable to make it up the stairs the first time. It exploded, breathless around the grab of hands and the hot slick of mouths. He’d closed his eyes, he’d closed his eyes and the flash burned image of Damianos on his knees was almost- almost- close enough. It was almost-

He’d pushed his hand against the back of his neck and then higher to fist in those curls. He liked the way Damianos growled when he pulled just little, possessive and firm. Alex ducked, touching his teeth to the line of Damianos’ jaw, glancing down between them, watching the way his spine went slick with sweat, the way his arms would reach up to grip the headboard, back to grab at Alex’s hip in soft low moans. He watched the flicker of muscle under skin and the way those curls went wild where they rubbed on the sheets. He felt himself detach, watching curiously as they fucked. 

Alex watched, shoving and aching deep as he wished blindly that this could be enough. He wished it was enough.

Damianos finished his shift and found Alex at the back door. He’d opened his mouth to say something but Alex shook his head, reaching to get his hands on the sleek black belt that was part of his uniform. He backed the other man against the wall behind the bar, the lights gone out and leaving only the light of the moon to bounce between them. 

“Τοσο πεινασμενος.” Damianos huffed a laugh, cocky and crooked and Alex nearly growled at the sound of it. He got the belt open, unhooking the clasp on his slacks and getting his wrist around the press of fabric and into the heat of it. Damianos muttered something Greek around a muttered moan, reaching to put broad palms against Alex’s neck. 

Alex wanted to tell him to stop, to put his hands down and just let him take. He wanted to tell him that he wasn’t doing it right. It wasn’t right, but it was close enough so he simply shook his head, shrugging the weight of Damianos’ hands off his shoulders and hummed pleased when the other man relaxed against the wall and let Alex take. He hardened in Alex’s hand, flushing and starting to pant as Alex worked him. Damianos wet his lips, watching Alex from under his lashes, dimple flashing as he spoke. “πιό.”

“Shut up,” Alex stated, voice low and rough. He pushed closer, turning his nose against the rasp of stubble along his jaw. “We doing this?”

The answer was lost in the way Damianos turned and caught his mouth, hungry as he pushed into the kiss. It was teeth and tongue, plush and hot. It ached, sizzling under Alex’s skin and skidding around the way his lungs went tight. He hit his knees, closing his eyes around the feel of those calloused fingers in his hair, the way they skated over his short hair to cup the back of his head. He opened his mouth and this close the crackled of dark hair on his nose was almost right. He opened his mouth and took him deeper, focused on the simple task of heat and need. 

Damianos had a small flat with hard wood floors and windows that opened out to the alley. If Alex leaned out he might be able to see the water, but at night he just knew the sheets spilled to tangle on the floor. He knew the way the mattress bounced, the headboard tapping against the wall, slow at first as Damianos opened for him. He liked the way the other man’s eyes would fall shut, mouth falling open as he spread his legs. He liked the way his dick looked, swollen and thick, darker against the paler skin of his stomach. He liked the way it would leak, jumping for his touch as he twisted fingers into the impossible tight heat of Damianos’ body. He liked the way the man’s breath would heave, the way his chest hair felt against his lips, the way he would squirm and beg in a foreign language until Alex pushed in, inches and aching as he kept one foot on the floor and wedged deep. He liked the way he didn’t want to pause.

Not here. Not like this. This was sex, simple and easy in the way he could angle his hips and Damianos would arch, reaching for him.

Alex didn’t reach back, just touched his mouth and fucked him until he was near tears. He would leave him asleep. He would leave before the morning, hitching his pants up and touching the sweaty mess of his curls. He left him with the memory of come smeared between their bodies. He left him with the promise of a repeat in a kiss dropped to the corner of his mouth. He left him with the memory of whimpering as Alex fucked him through the aftershocks.

The alley behind the small four story apartment building felt like all the other alleys. Moonlight bounced on the white walls. Everything was blue, everything was sad hope in the dark in Mykonos. Alex dialed the number in his phone, closing his eyes when it rang and leaning a shoulder against the wall. It rang three times and he almost hung up when it clicked over.

“Alex?” 

It was seven in the afternoon in Roswell New Mexico. It was seven and the sun was probably hanging low in the sky, the endless red of the desert starting to pick up the long shadows of early evening. He could imagine the thunderheads, the way they were almost the same white of these buildings, roiling and dangerous, flashing silently in the distance with the promise of rain. He could picture the way Michael’s curls would dance, wild around his face. He could picture the way his face looked, open and wanting with those soft brown eyes, the soft brown of his hair. He was golden, warm tones and impossibly beautiful. He could imagine the shape of his name on his lips. He just.

“Alex, please, just say something.”

The minutes stretched and he could feel the come flaking on his skin. He could feel the ache creep back into his chest, the way his breathing went tight and he could imagine the way Michael would move with him. He always moved with him. It was so easy. It was just him in the dark, naked and needing and impossibly open as he whispered Alex’s name like it was the only word he’d ever need to know. He knows the way it sounds because it’s the way he said Michael’s name.

The minutes passed and Alex just listened to Michael breathe. He listened to Michael breathe nine time zones and half a world away. He could still smell Damianos’ cologne. He could hear the wind, the promise of thunder. He could hear where he wanted to be.

“I miss you.”

Alex hung up.


	14. Chapter 14

2017: Iraq August

Daniel is brushing his teeth when he makes the visible decision to leave him. 

Warrant Officer Daniel Cradoc is beautiful. He’s beautiful with short cropped chestnut brown hair and wide doe like brown eyes, heavy lashed like a disney princess. He’s sharp jawed and handsome. Alex knew the shape of his smile, the wicked shape of desire on a mouth gone red and wrecked with sex. He knew the soft hum as he tilted his jaw back under the stroke of Alex’s thumb. He knows because he’s been watching. He knows how he sounds because they have been harmonizing for two years, soft and lovely like a hearthfire kept banked.

Alex wishes he wasn’t proud of him for making the decision. Alex wishes he could be angry and hurt. He wishes he wanted to fight for this.

It’s not the first time Alex has wished he could love more than once.

Ironically, the realization makes him want to cup Daniel’s face between his hands and kiss him. It makes him want to sip at his breath and press him back against the cold porcelain of the sink he’s standing in front of in a towel and toothpaste. Alex wants to press against his back, drop a kiss to his shoulder, and watch him in reflection as his hands tug the towel away and spread over the crackling coarse hair under his belly button. He wants to say goodbye. He wants it to be tender and purposeful; he wants to hope Daniel knows that he tried. He tried.

He never moved in. He never unpacked. He had no right.

Daniel was watching him where he was getting dressed in the reflection, toothbrush slowing to a stop as he tilted his head at Alex. They’d woken to the alarm, Alex kissing the spot at the back of Daniel’s neck as he scooted out of the bed toward the shower. It was rote now, this life they almost shared. Alex made toast, eating it dry as he sipped the coffee. Daniel would make a face at him and uncap the apricot preserves his mother sent him in care packages. Daniel sang in the shower, loud and beautiful, a strong perfect tenor that could trill up and down a melody with a passionate break at the notes that needed it. His voice would throb around the tile and tingle up Alex’s spine until Alex would step in behind him, into the warm steamy water and the feel of his hips slippery under his palms as Daniel spun. He would find the harmony and for a second it would seem perfect.

And then he would remember the sound of Michael singing off key and unbelievably delighted. He would remember the way it hooked into his lungs, hooked into his heartbeat like welling laughter bubbling up like warm water. He would remember the way Michael would turn, uncaring of the judging smirk between Alex’s eyebrows and throw finger guns as he shuffled to stretch out over top of where Alex had covered his ears. He would remember how horrible Michael’s voice was and no matter how beautiful the song, Daniel’s voice sounded hollow.

Alex wishes he could have forgotten. He wishes he wasn’t broken into a thousand tiny bone fragments that only one smile ever healed. He wished he could look away from the memories.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” Daniel plucked the toothbrush from his mouth, eyes warm and wet. He kept staring into the mirror instead of turning. He kept staring at Alex in reflection like it gave him strength. 

Alex closed his eyes, nodding without even intending to. 

“Yeah.” Daniel sighed and rinsed his toothbrush, thumbing the bristles clean. “Yeah, okay.” 

The bedroom was a simple square with a queen size mattress, one night stand with a light, and an adjoining bathroom. There was a poster from a night at an art museum, a memory in a portrait of Egon Schiele in loose lines and wet looking mouth. It was a drawing of distorted passion and love made with loose scumbled lines, like someone was trying to catch the shape of someone who never stayed still long enough to be seen. Daniel had said it reminded him of Alex, that’s why he’d framed it. Alex always watched the dark eyes on the poster and wondered who he was thinking of, if it was someone who glowed like the gold Klimt used for the rest of his paintings. If Egon Schiele had loved Klimt like the sunrise, flecked with gold and littered with crooked off key smiles. He wondered and rolled into Daniel’s touch like he could slip under the edge of Daniel’s feelings and pull them tight around him. He would feel Daniel move on him, hands tight to his hips as they pressed together, panting and snarling their need. Daniel loved him fiercely. Alex didn’t think he knew any other way of loving.

“I’m-”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m not pitiful, Alex. You tried to love me.” Daniel shrugged. “I’m not an idiot and I deserve someone who won’t have to try.” He nodded like he was reassuring himself. “I think you should go.”

“Daniel-”

“Now, Alex. Before I change my mind and decide I am okay with your half light.” Daniel looked up at him in the mirror and it was a perfect moment. He was beautiful in a breathtaking way and Alex could almost see what could have been if Michael Guerin had never existed.

If Michael Guerin hadn’t touched him first.

If Michael Guerin hadn’t reached right into his chest and plucked the whole of him to carry under his ribs.

If Michael Guerin hadn’t.


	15. Chapter 15

2013 May - Iraq

Alex stared out at the tarmac, eyes barely registering the soft way sunset tipped over the far mountains to spill shadows through the cement. He was savoring a cup of coffee in a tin cup, hands warm as the chill of the night started to prickle against where his wet hair dripped into the collar of his pale tan shirt. Alex seemed to be made for deserts, skin burnishing to the color of the warm earth and blending into the sand colored tones of his uniform. He wished he still had the keffiyah that Oliver had given him. He wanted to touch the tassels or run his fingers thoughtfully against the soft seam.

The unit was stationed out on the larger encampment built into the flat the river valley. The mountains grew larger to the north, craggy and complicated, prickling with decades old conflict and pitted with the marks of the current bombings.

He was stroking the edges of his phone, a sleek iphone with international data. He was thinking about sunsets and the soft curling cold of evenings that prickled with stars. He was thinking about Michael. He shouldn’t.

Michael would be waking up. Michael would be rubbing his eyes and yawning into the back of his wrist. He would be staring at the floor between his feet, shoulders freckled in the predawn light. It was sunrise in New Mexico. Michael had been living in the bunks provided by the Foster’s ranch for their hands, meals included in the evenings. The communal shower not much different from the heads here in Iraq. 

Michael would come back to the hotel room at night, stained and smelling of cattle, diesel fuel, and the swampy thick heat of his sweat. Alex would pull him close, hooking a finger into his belt loop and drop his face into the corner of his neck and inhale. It smelled like home. It smelled warm and thick, like Alex could taste Michael. Michael would groan and push his hands under Alex’s shirt. 

“Don’t shower yet,” Alex would manage, the clatter of Michael’s belt buckle punctuating his intent. “Not yet.”

Michael’s smile was relieved and saucy, wetting his lips in a slow slide of tongue as he watched Alex under low lashes and smoldering intent. He would swallow when Alex got a hand on him, stroking him to hard. “That right?”

Alex would snort and twist his wrist, reveling in the way Michael shut up and went pliant under his fingers.

He shouldn’t call. He shouldn’t call. He shouldn’t call. He should-

“What are you doing out here?” Daniel had a lovely baritone, husking and warm. Daniel had a lovely smile, wide and white with one crooked canine that curved every twist of mouth into a smirk. Daniel had lovely eyes, soft brown and thick lashed with a wide hopeful gaze. Daniel had a lovely mouth, dropping a kiss to Alex’s shoulder, hidden and quick before standing just to his right and staring out over the falling night.

“Just thinking,” Alex replied.

“That’s dangerous and you know it.” Daniel grinned, lifting his eyebrows and turning to face him.

“I live on the edge.”

Daniel snorted and it was ridiculous, a full body shake that somehow cracked into a soft laugh. “You like to edge.”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up. “Was that?”

Daniel touched his tongue to his canine and slanted Alex a hot look, eyebrows slipping up suggestively. “Could be.”

“I’ll meet you inside.”

Daniel nodded. “Don’t get lost.” 

Daniel was nearly six foot, slim hipped and compact with wiry shoulders and the perfect amount of chest hair. Alex liked to slide his fingers into it, slide his fingers down. Daniel snarled into kisses, fervent and hungry. It had surprised him the first time, the sheer unabashed need that Daniel handed him.

But it was sunrise in New Mexico and Alex glanced down at his phone, idly tapping out the number he knew by heart. He glanced behind him, watching Daniel pause to chat with PFC Piurri before shoving the younger man. The phone was ringing, ringing and Alex didn’t know why he was calling, what he would say, how he’d managed to convince himself he should.

The phone rang and Alex couldn’t decide if it was relief he felt when no one answered.


	16. Chapter 16

2018 - Albuquerque February

People don’t look right at him any more. They glance at him from the side of their eyes. They look, quickly look away, and sometimes sneak a look back that doesn’t reach his face, just stare at the folded fabric under his right knee. The touch of their gaze quick and startled like he was a hot stove, like he hurt them. The kids would just openly watch him. He moved through the terminal in uniform, the ABU’s starched to a crisp finish, the front pockets flat and his hat tucked away. He wanted to smooth a hand over the front, but squeezed the plastic grips on his forearm crutches instead. His hands were full.

The Albuquerque airport international gates were nestled under a high arching ceiling with decorative cut work in the rafters. The light was stunning, brilliant white and streaming unfettered through the tall windows that lined the gates. The entire airport had been decorated like people needed to be reminded where they were. The lobby seats a soft tan leather with hammered nails and wood frames. The walls were a quiet cream with softer turquoise murals and sandstone colored accents. The gate desk was chest high and manned by black haired woman in her early twenties, thick eyeliner and flawless lipstick. She waved brightly at him as he moved past.

“Thank you for your service.”

Alex Manes nodded once with a sharp plastic smile and didn’t correct her. He was the one who had heard the statement in past tense.

He was coming home. What was left of him was coming home. He hadn’t wanted to come, hadn’t wanted to get out of bed that morning despite Nurse Merriweather’s chirping and no nonsense declarations. She was a tidy dyed blond with small pearl earrings, a carefully polished wedding band, and wide genuine smile. She’d taken care of him even as he blistered the world and tried to salt the earth behind him in his dark moments. She’d monitored his surgery. She’d monitored him.

That woman had done more to put him back together than the surgeon who had finished taking him apart. 

“There has to be something back home that’s worth seeing. I’ve never been to New Mexico, but it’s supposed to be beautiful.”

Alex looked at the wall sharply when all he could think about was the way Michael Guerin would smile at him after shoving wet curls out of his face in the shower, laughing around the way Alex would splutter. He shoved down the way Michael had stared at him like a stranger. He shoved down the way he’d wanted to reach out and take his hands, touch his mouth, take him.

“Nothing really left for me at home but a shitty childhood.”

She’d paused where she was stripping the bed with a ruthless efficiency. “You’re a terrible liar, Manes.”

“Mind your own, Merriweather.”

She grinned and wiggled her hips saucily as she went back to the task at hand.

Alex sighed, sitting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and stared ahead, thinking about the way the sunset would pick golden tones out of Guerin’s hair, his skin, his eyes. How the sunset loved him almost as much as Alex had.

“The sunsets are pretty,” he conceded.

“See, that’s something. Take me a picture?”

Alex squared his jaw and glanced up at her. “Yeah, okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Chasing and Riley. I can't even possibly express how fucking necessary you two are to me creating and completing anything. A lot of the time I have that writer brain that tells me I'm writing to nothing and no one- but then you two just reach in and pull me out.
> 
> And that is invaluable.
> 
> I started filling in the gaps for the Lost Decade while writing Til the Night- so this is a part of that series.
> 
> [Character Reference](https://irolltwenties.tumblr.com/characters)


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